FACE CARDS, SIDE PARTS, AND REFLECTIVE MAKEUP: 2026 BEAUTY TRENDS IN A POST-REAL WORLD

words by FRANCESCO PIZZUTI

In a time when faces can exist without bodies, generated, enhanced, and optimized, one might wonder: how does beauty adapt and preserve itself? As AI reshapes the visual field, beauty as visual self-expression inevitably resists or enforces certain codes. To choose how one appears, to understand the underbelly of these beauty codes, is to resist losing agency over how we express ourselves. Now, will beauty trends save us and our faces from AI erasure? Probably not. But in the meantime, it’s good to know what 2026 is looking like; plus, it is the era of face cards — and hey, we want our wallets full.

@oliviahalle on instagram

This year feels full circle. As 2026 began, 2016 made a sudden comeback. We were all posting and reminiscing, returning to baked-up powder, Kylie Jenner eyebrows, stick contouring, and streaky highlighter. It felt so dated, impossible that we thought we looked good.

However, this comeback made us realize how strictly connected beauty trends are to the visual technologies that circulate them. Maybe the dense coat of setting powder and hyper-sculpted brows really did look good under the flattering flash of an iPhone 6. Or maybe we were just insane. But it was also a different moment culturally. “Clean girls” and skin care had not yet arrived to discipline and restrain us, and excess was still aspirational. Progress meant more; more product, more pigment. We had not yet reached the fatigue of hyper-optimization, but we were so excited by the possibility of becoming more visible, more polished, more perfected.

@buckyholic and @lilyrosedeppdaughter on pinterest

As of 2026, that aspirational perfection has been reached, and maybe that’s why a lot of beauty trends this year flip the script with a return to that messiness, that apparent inexperience, with clumpy mascara, Au naturel eyebrows, messy hair, and clear nails.

The extra-thin, cunty brows that have dominated over the last couple of years are starting to be grown out and left to nature, embracing this new desire for messiness and imperfection; something internet goddess Enya Umanzor has been exploring for some time. Eyebrows, as well as hair, are starting to be seen as something that enhances our bodies, not something to be enhanced or controlled.

@enyaumanzor on instagram

The Elsa Hosk–style perfect blowout has been cancelled in favour of messy, braided, decorated, hair — as already partially seen on some of last year’s runways, such as Prada Fall 2025 and McQueen Fall 2025. These trends are fully establishing themselves this year.
To stay within the hair department, perfection is further refused with side parts also making a strong return — mama Olivia Halle will attest.

images courtesy of PRADA and ALEXANDER MCQUEEN

images courtesy of ELENA VELEZ and DILARA FINDIKOGLU

Makeup is cooling down, with icy, glimmering, cool-toned formulas slowly replacing heavier coverage. It’s less about masking and more about refracting. Think holographic notes and opalescent eyeshadows as seen on Zara Larsson in her new era, freshly out of the “Khia asylum”. On Spring/Summer 2026 runways, however, polish fractured; at Elena Velez and Dilara Findikoğlu, makeup turned messy, smeared, nearly apocalyptic, a sentiment shared online in this time of uncertainty.

@zaralarson and @addisonrae on instagram
@callmeyours_ and @esmaelewis on pinterest

At the same time, the product has become a performance. Under-eye patches will, in fact, be the trendiest beauty accessory of 2026, worn out of the house, similary to star-shaped pimple pacthes that got so big in the last couple of years. This logic mirrors merch culture, à la Kendall Jenner and her 818 Tequila keychain, or her bestie Hailey Bieber and her lip gloss phone case phenomenon. It’s no longer enough to use a product; you have to signal it. Once it’s blended in, its brand disappears, so the packaging, the patch, and the logo become the status symbol. In a tightened economy, visibility is value.

Another interesting trend that will take off this year is “scent stacking”: the concept of mixing more fragrances to find your own. Scent stacking will thrive in response to the desire for agency and personalization in a progressively more saturated and overwhelming market.

image courtesy of VOGUE

Nails follow a similar split logic. Unicolor or clear for everyday pragmatism, maximalist for bigger moments. Runways may forecast elaborate sets, as seen on Luar’s Spring/Summer 26 runway, but real life’s economy edits them down. We are close to a recession after all.

All in all, in 2026, as beauty is becoming automated and frictionless, desirability shifts towards texture, imperfection, and visible effort; towards faces that look more lived-in. So, we can’t help but wonder if maybe the most radical flex of the year will be to look unmistakably human.